Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio, and spent part of her early childhood in and out of foster care before her grandfather, Ron Biles, and his wife, Nellie, adopted her and her younger sister and raised them in Spring, Texas. She discovered gymnastics by accident at age six during a daycare field trip to a gym, where a coach noticed her natural ability and invited her to train. She went on to train for years at World Champions Centre, the gym her family later owned and operated in Spring.

Biles rose quickly through the elite ranks, winning her first US national all-around title in 2013 and her first World Championship all-around title the same year. She dominated the sport from 2013 through 2016, winning World titles across all-around and individual events, before becoming a global star at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she won four gold medals and a bronze, cementing her status as the face of American gymnastics.

Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

After Rio, Biles took a mental health break before returning for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where she withdrew from most individual events citing a bout of the “twisties” and its impact on her safety, before returning to win a bronze on balance beam — a moment widely credited with changing the conversation around athlete mental health. She made a full competitive comeback at the 2023 World Championships, winning multiple gold medals, and capped it with three golds and a silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics, extending her record as the most decorated gymnast in World Championship history.

Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0 br)

Because gymnastics offers minimal prize money compared to sports like tennis or golf, Biles’ annual earnings are driven overwhelmingly by endorsements, appearance fees, and her own touring ventures. Sports-business outlets have estimated her annual income in the mid-to-high single-digit millions in peak competitive years, a figure that rivals or exceeds many higher-profile Olympic sports.

Olympic and World Championship gymnastics pays comparatively little in direct prize money; instead, USA Gymnastics and the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee pay medal bonuses (historically around $37,500 for an individual Olympic gold). Biles has supplemented this substantially through her self-produced Gold Over America Tour, an arena tour featuring fellow elite gymnasts that she has run in both 2021 and 2023, reported to gross several million dollars per run.

Biles has built one of the largest endorsement portfolios of any female Olympian, with long-running deals including Athleta (activewear, signed after she left Nike in 2021), Uber Eats, Beam mattresses and wellness products, Grubhub, and Voit. Her Athleta partnership in particular is reported to be one of the largest deals the brand has signed with an individual athlete.

Beyond endorsements, Biles has an ownership interest in her family’s World Champions Centre gym in Spring, Texas, where she still trains. She also earns from media ventures, including the 2024 Netflix documentary series “Simone Biles Rising,” and from her Gold Over America Tour production, which functions as its own business venture separate from her endorsement income.

Biles and her husband, NFL safety Jonathan Owens, own a home in the Houston, Texas area, and have owned property near his NFL teams during his career. Reports describe a comfortable but not ostentatious lifestyle relative to her earning power, with her wealth concentrated more in liquid endorsement income than in real estate or luxury assets.